Sen. Jeff Flake slammed President Trump on Wednesday for his obsession with "fake news" and the commander-in-chief's own relationship with the truth.

The Arizona Republican, a frequent Trump critic, took to the Senate floor to shame the White House for taking an aggressive stance against the media and for taking abusive liberties with facts.

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"No politician will ever get to tell us what the truth is and is not. And anyone who presumes to try to attack or manipulate the truth to his own purposes should be made to realize the mistake and be held to account," Flake said, before addressing the President directly.

The outgoing lawmaker, who announced his retirement last year, attacked Trump for questioning President Barack Obama's birthplace and "fantasies about rigged elections," along with his "effort to undermine confidence in the federal courts, federal law enforcement, the intelligence community and the free press."

Flake's fellow Arizona Senator, Sen. John McCain, wrote a Washington Post op-ed on Tuesday that also targeted Trump's assault on the press.

"Reporters around the world face intimidation, threats of violence, harassment, persecution and sometimes even death as governments resort to brutal censorship to silence the truth," McCain wrote.

Trump frequently berates newspapers and networks when he feels they are being unfair to him or not covering stories in a way he believes they should.

Trump annoucned that he planned to present awards to the "most dishonest & corrupt media."

He has called for libel laws in the U.S., which are decided at the state level, to be reexamined.

The label "fake news" is often applied by the President to any news outlet that he disagrees with. He has amped up his base with constant attacks on the truth and used campaign rallies as a platform to encourage supporters to disregard news they disagree with.

Flake cited a report from the Committee to Protect Journalists that said 2017 was the second year in a row where the number of journalists imprisoned for their work reached a historical high. The report said Trump's anti-press rhetoric "serves to reinforce the framework of accusations and legal charges that allow" authoritarians the world over to imprison journalists.